


Look Back

by writeandexhale



Category: Andi Mack - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 00:30:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeandexhale/pseuds/writeandexhale
Summary: Cyrus returns to school for the first time in 10 days, but it seems impossible to return to anything resembling “normal” without looking back.





	Look Back

Somehow going back to school is making it worse.

The reality that this space, too, is now so painfully void of you.

For the first time in a week and a half I approach my locker. Buffy already waiting by my door; Jonah and Andi on their way over. I’ve never been someone who likes to be alone, but I can barely bring myself to face my best friends. These people who know and love me better than almost anyone.

I shift my eyes away after making eye contact with Buffy. Her eyes hold memories I don’t want to face.

Andi cautiously put her arm around me, “Hey, Cyrus…”

“Hey guys.”

I try and be polite but, honestly, its not working for me right now.

“We brought you a chocolate chocolate chip muffin, we thought it might make you feel a little better for your first day back,” Jonah says, sheepishly pulling a brown bag out of his backpack.

“Thanks, you guys are too sweet,” mustering my best attempt at a grateful look. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful, but getting a smile from me in the last 10 days has been an order no one has been able to fill.

“Actually,” Jonah pipes up, “the muffin is way sweeter than us.” I manage to fake a small laugh while Andi hits him and Buffy gives him a look which could make a hardened criminal confess to crimes he had no part in.

“Oh, shoot. I’m sorry Cyrus! I’m so so so sorry! I was just trying to make a joke because I don’t always know what to do in awkward situations and right now I really don’t know what to say to make it better and I kind of panicked and I feel really bad…”

“No, no Jonah its fine, don’t feel bad.” I interrupt his stream of consciousness, its not his fault and he doesn’t need to take on my pain.

The hallway is stale in the silence. We make and break eye contact, I have nothing to say and they have no words to give.

Around us a bevy of preteens rush past, absorbed in their days and their dramas. A week and a half ago those days and those dramas were mine and they were yours. They were ours. But now you are gone and my days and my dramas seem so much deeper, heavier, and more impossible to bear. They may all be my age but it feels as though I am suddenly decades older, made frail by grief.

“Well,” I break into the emptiness, “I’ve got to get to math early, I need to get the work I missed.”

“Yea, we should probably get to class too,” Andi shuffles her feet, unsure of where to look.

“If you need us just send us a text Cyrus,” Buffy offers, “Our teachers will understand.”

Jonah holds in a small laugh, “I’ve already mastered the hourly bathroom break so they definitely wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Thanks, guys,” I manage a smile, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

But I’m not sure how to do this without you.

……

All of my teachers are understanding, at least for now. Most of them have told me I don’t have to make up the work that I missed, though that at least could have been a distraction from my mind’s broken record of things I could have done differently.

You were never good at math but right now the math is all I can think about. If we’d planned to meet 5 minutes later, if the car took an extra second to start, if you were driving a mile per hour slower, the possibilities are infinite, reality is permanent.

If a semi-truck is driving 55 mph going west from point A and an SUV is traveling at 60 mph east from point B, at what point will they meet each other? Label this as point C on your line and calculate the force of the impact if the two vehicles would collide.

This is the only math problem in my head. What I wouldn’t give for those numbers to be jumbled and out of order.

The bell rings and I’m back in the hallway surrounded by those I know. And I’m back in the hallway, surrounded but alone.

……

I’ve barely eaten since the accident, I haven’t been even a little hungry. Grief has a way of filling an empty stomach.

I lock myself in the single stall bathroom for lunch, I’m not ready to eat with anyone else yet. Too much conversation. Too many faces. Too many people who will never understand.

I take the muffin out of my backpack and turn it over in my hands, memories flooding back through my mind.

That was the first moment we really had talked. You were the scary basketball guy and I was the weak, awkward, closeted kid who almost no one understood. You mocked me for not being able to get my own muffin. That kinda hurt.

But let’s be honest, I probably needed to hear it.

But then, oh I’ll never forget the feeling.

Then you put your hand on my shoulder and brought your face close to mine. That moment which I knew meant so little to you was blowing up in my mind. My heart racing faster than it ever had before, my hands tingling, and my breath shortening. I hand’t known that I had moved on from Jonah until that moment.

That first touch.

That first time I felt your breath so close to me.

I was so scared to own my story. To step forward and take what I wanted. To be honest with myself and the world.

To you, to Buffy, to all the people in line, you just backed me up as I grabbed a simple muffin. But in my mind that was such a monumental step forward. What I wanted was something that I could actually attain. The looks that others shot my way could not keep me from being myself. And when I did there would be people to back me up, who maybe were not as scary as they once seemed.

Eating our feelings was something we always had in common.

I take a bite off the top of the muffin. The chocolate chips melting in my mouth. The fluffy, chocolate cake tasting as delightful as ever.

I’ve heard people say that smells can bring back memories. Well so can the taste of a muffin.

I take another bite.

And as I sit on the cold, tile, bathroom floor a tear falls down my cheek.

The memory stings, makes my whole body ache.

But I’m done avoiding it.

Your memory is also part of my story, and I will face it head on, but I will never let it go.

……

This might be the last time I ever come out to the swings.

My long time escape now is just overwhelmingly full of memories and moments that I can’t, and won’t, run away from.

It was here where you found me and pushed me higher than I thought I’d ever go.

It was here where we fought and made up, time and again.

It was here where I finally got the courage to tell you.

It was here where you said the words I didn’t even dare to dream that you’d say. The words I refused to hope that I’d hear.

“Me too.”

You words were so tentative. Infused with a nervousness that struck me as so out of place, but so endearing, so lovely, so true.

How had I been the brave one? How was I the one who was willing to broach the topic we’d both tucked away?

I think…no, I know it was you. You taught me to be brave. You taught me to live without fear. You, a guy who seemed so perfectly put together, great at whatever you tried, you told me that I could be myself and I believed you. In your willingness to show me the parts of you that you had kept carefully hidden, you made me believe that maybe those things weren’t worth hiding at all.

As you breathed out those two wonderful, life changing, words I didn’t know what to do. I stood up and sat back down, only to stand again and pace maniacally around the swing-set.

You probably thought I was crazy.

Or maybe you understood.

Maybe you felt crazy too.

Because you took the next leap of faith.

It was you who stood up in front of me and put both of your arms on my shoulders, holding me in place as my eyes and mind darted to find an escape.

“Cyrus, I…”

Your voice was low, but steady. Confident and anxious all in the same breath.

I was sure that you were gearing up to tell me how wrong I was. How I never should think of us that way. How we were never going to be anything other than friends. I knew that was what you were going to say so I interrupted.

“It’s ok T.J., I get it…”

But as my voice trailed off, yours cut back in with an urgency that hadn’t been there before.

“No! Cyrus, its just, I’m sorry I’ve never done this before, and I’m nervous but…”

I looked back into your eyes and could see you thinking, deciding, measuring how brave you could be.

“I like you, Cyrus…”

My heart rate reached a level I’d never experienced before. I was frozen, so taken aback by this revelation that I couldn’t move or speak or even process the information you just gave me. It was too good to even be a dream.

Seeing my hesitation you continued, “but it’s ok if you just see me as a friend, I get it, but I just wanted…”

I decided that we both deserved to have dreams this good.

Our lips met and your hands dropped from my shoulders to my back, pulling me up and into you as I wrapped myself in your embrace. In that moment, I felt so known, so seen, so loved, and I never wanted it to end. The sweet communion of vulnerability and joy meeting in unparalleled delight.

Pulling back, I stared into your eyes where I found a joy that could be matched only by my own.

“Well,” I exhaled, smiling upwards, “I don’t know if you can tell, but I like you too, T.J.,”

“Oh really?” T.J. laughed as sat down on the grass, legs pressed together, hands and fingers entwined. “I thought that was your way of telling me you just wanted to be friends.”

I smiled back, “T.J., I never want to call you ‘just a friend’ ever again.”

“Deal.”

Your confidence served as the confirmation that it was now no longer you and I, it was we. Labels aside, we knew what we wanted, and we would not let anyone stop us.

We talked and laughed and kissed for what felt like hours but have only been ten minutes, before you suddenly let go of my hand as your mom’s SUV approached the swings.

“Alright, there’s just one problem,” you said, embarrassment flooding your face. “My parents don’t know yet and I know I have to tell them but I’m really nervous.”

I wanted to grab your hand but knew that wouldn’t help, so a hand on the shoulder would have to do. “It’s ok,” I said with more confidence than I had, “I haven’t told my parents either. But we both will and we will both be ok. It doesn’t have to be right away, we can wait until you’re ready.”

“Ok,” you said, breathing in deep, “At least I know that we’ll be in this together.”

“Always.”

It took everything in me not to run after you as you stood and walked away, the joy coursing through my veins made it almost impossible stand still.

But as you opened the car door and looked back over your shoulder, the look in your eyes assured me our newfound bravery was here to stay.

……

I’m caught up in the circular thinking of my mind.

If only I had run after you, if only I had slowed you down, if only we hadn’t had that conversation then, if, if, if…

The ifs are endless.

I’m back in the grass T.J.

Back in the same spot where we had our first and our last kiss.

I pull out my phone and turn to the message I’ll never delete. The last message you would ever send.

_cyrus!!!! i just told my mom and she was soooo cool about it!!!! 🥳🥳🥳 she says we need to have you over for dinner soon tho so that dad can size you up 🤣 don’t worry, i’ll be there to protect you 😘😘_

Three minutes later the SUV and the semi-truck hit Point C.

The police say you wouldn’t have felt a thing.

You were gone in an instant.

Now I’m the only one alive who ever knew you liked me.

I’m the only one alive who ever knew you kissed me.

I’m the only one alive who knows why you kept looking back.

I’m scared again T.J.

“I’m so scared…” I whisper to the sky, to you.

“You are the one who’s supposed to be here! You’re the one who’s supposed to make me feel brave!” If I shout it will you hear me? Will you come back? Will you be near me again?

“I just,” I stand, reaching up towards you, shouting, “I need you to come back! I need you to give the push to keep going. I can’t do…dammit T.J. I don’t know how to be brave without you.”

I collapse, out of breath, out of hope, out of words, sobbing into the grass.

“I miss you so much…”

…..

For three years I’ve had the same dream of you.

Always in the park, always walking towards your mom’s SUV.

Every time you turn back with the same hopeful look in your eyes and every time I want to scream at you not to go. But my lips won’t open, my mouth won’t move, and every time you turn forward again, marching on to a future I cannot rewrite.

But last night was different.

Last night, when you turned, your look held no hope, only pity.

Walking back towards me you took my hands again, your fingers feeling the same as they had the first time you held me.

“Be brave without me, Cyrus.”

“I can’t,” for the first time finding my voice in this recurring dream.

“Yes, you can. And you will. I didn’t make you brave, Cyrus, you made me brave.”

“I…”

“Be brave, Cyrus.”

I waited as you walked away, but this time as you got into the car you didn’t look back. You didn’t turn over your shoulder. You left. And somehow, even in the dream, I knew it was for good.

So, three years later, I think it’s time for me to finally be brave.

I get up and grab the picture of you from my desk.

A tear forms as I hold it in my hands. The weight of what could have been is contained inside of that frame.

But I need to let it go.

I need to let you go.

So I put you inside of a box in my closet, and you join my Bar Mitzvah program, my stone from a beach in Hawaii, Hanukah presents that I’ve long forgotten about.

I hope you know that you are worth more to me than any of those objects ever will be.

But I can’t keep talking to you everyday.

I can’t keep waiting for the moment where I turn around and you are right behind me, waiting to take me in your arms again.

I can’t keep hiding in my grief.

I need to be brave.

And I’ll never forget that you taught me that.

I put the lid on your box and put it back on the shelf.

I walk out of my door, closing it behind me.

This time I don’t look back.


End file.
